Day 5 cont.

Sunday 10th April 2011

The Fortune Reads: Someone Will Get Fired cont.

The few beers in the sun turned into a weekend of relaxing, thoroughly deserved though after a great first week on placement. Going back to Friday I will continue the post.

After the success of Thursday our spirits were pretty high as we arrived for our last day of the first week, we were a man down but had constant access through emails and mobiles if help was required.

Smiles on faces and brains switched on to Creative Thinking we started throwing ideas out about the latest brief, this was soon cut short.

If you remember, on Wednesday the sticker designs for the HRC were beginning to get finalised with the design itself incorporating the chocolate product. For this we had to use an existing product, which we thought, luckily was on our desk. Clarifying with Jason in our office we opened the product, took the photos and placed the packet back in the fridge so it wouldn’t melt. Images done, that would be the last we would hear of it…WRONG!

Paul whose office we had been using and inevitably his chocolate we had used returned after being away, rightly so he came over to where we were working and asked if we had seen the chocolate, as it was the only one in production and his only point of reference so if we could return it, FULLY IN TACT.

The penny dropped and then so did our faces.

I led Paul to the fridge, hoping we had constructed it all back together before leaving on Thursday. My hands rummaged for a while before placing onto numerous hard chocolate circles and a foil unwrapped. Needless to say, Paul wasn’t overly amused. Leaving Paul at his office door with the last words to each other being an apology on my behalf, I returned to where we had been working.

40 minutes passed my page remained empty, I couldn’t work knowing I had blown any chance of forming a good relationship with my Cadbury colleagues.

Bite the bullet and take the punishment like a man

We approached Paul’s office door and asked to speak to him, anything we could do to rectify the situation we would do. The shouting at commenced! Well actually no, Paul explained he had put in a new order and the problem was over, appreciated our apology but mistakes happen and everything as far as he was concerned was sorted.

All of this within 3 hours!

The guilt finally lifted, ideas could once again bombard our working space. New approaches were coming out the woodwork and a meeting with Martin was next on the agenda.

Pitching to the professional I started feeling like a real advertiser! Ideas were challenged and reasons given but the words that were left ringing in my ears stated  

‘The guys out there who have been doing this for thirty years have come up with the same ideas as you, you have achieved this in just three days’

Feeling pretty much on top of the world after that comment, bring on Monday for the final week of placement!